1. Chapter 16: Integrating Services Marketing Communications
CUSTOMER
Service Delivery
External Communications to Customers
COMPANY
(Gap 4) The Communication Gap
Part 6 Opener

2. Gap 4 – Communications Gap
Cookies is a retail store where customers host parties for guests to bake and decorate cookies. The ad for the store neglected to mention a $50 cleaning fee that would be assessed at the end of the party.

3. Need for Coordination in Marketing Communication
You see an ad for a new sandwich at McDonald’s, but find out that it’s not available at your local McDonald’s. Did the employee behind the counter offer a reason why the sandwich was not available? Did s/he even realize it was advertised and for sale elsewhere? Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) – company carefully integrates and organizes all of its external communications channels: Corporate messages, positioning and images, and identity coordinated across all venues; advertising has same ‘look and feel’ as website.

4. Figure 16.2: Approaches for Integrating Services Marketing Communication
Manage
Customer
Expectations
Manage
Service
Promises
Goal: Delivery
Greater than
Or equal to
promises
Improve
Customer
Education
Manage
Internal
Marketing
Communication

5. Key Reasons for Service Communication Problems – Factors that Contribute to provider Gap 4
Inadequate Management of Service Promises
Inadequate Management of Customer Expectations
Inadequate Customer Education
Inadequate Internal Marketing Communications

6. Inadequate Management of Service Promises
You purchase a new refrigerator, and the salesperson informs you that the refrigerator will be delivered to your apartment this Thursday between 1:00pm and 3:00pm. However, the refrigerator is not delivered until 4:00pm Friday.
Causes: variation in ___________________ of services; company lacks information and integration needed to make fulfillable promises.

7. Inadequate Management of Customer Expectations
The ad guaranteed that you would be skydiving after only a couple of hours of lessons. After enrolling in class, you learn that instead of skydiving by yourself (which is what the ad implied), you will be skydiving in tandem (belted to another experienced skydiver) due to safety requirements.
____________ – create expectations that cannot be met.

8. Inadequate Customer Education
You have hurt your back and have to go to physical therapy every other day. You have a series of exercises to complete on days you do not see the therapist. After two months, you are not feeling any better and complain to your therapist who at this point realizes you have not been performing all of the stretching exercises. You had been handed a booklet when you started your therapy. Because you had been instructed to perform some of the exercises in the booklet but not all of them, you had thought you were not to do the others.

9. Inadequate Internal Marketing Communications
Your bank frequently changes its advertising about new offerings to remain competitive. However, the bank tellers’ training does not keep pace with the changes in advertising. As a result, customers come in expecting new accounts and rates to be available, and employees are embarrassed because they had not been informed.
_______________________: transmit information across functional boundaries in an organization to align all functions with customer expectations.

10. Manage Service Promises (page 491)
Create Effective Services Advertising
Coordinate External Communication
Make Realistic Promises
4. Offer Service Guarantees

11. Create Effective Services Advertising
▪ Use narratives to demonstrate the service experience (services are experiential; ________________________)
▪ Present vivid information (_______________________)
▪ Use interactive imagery (company logo + expression)
▪ Focus on the tangibles (bank’s marble columns; ______
_______________________)
▪ Etc.
Ex: Life insurance, hospital care, nursing home

12. Create Effective Services Advertising
Television commercials for All-State insurance often feature actual agents who explain the personalized service that they perform for All-State insurance policy holders and appreciative customers who have experienced this personalized service. By using the agents and customers in its commercials, All-State is:

13. Coordinate External Communication
Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO)
Reaching new (younger) audiences through internet and electronic media. Older concertgoers prefer books and magazines.
BSO combined direct mail, marketing, customized on-line infomercials, and taxi-top ads to reach out to younger and older audiences.

14. Manage Service Promises
Make Realistic Promises
Offer Service Guarantees
For those who arrive at the airport with only time enough to catch their flight, parking has been a nightmare until the development of GoldParker System, which guarantees a convenient parking place to its members

15. Manage Customer Expectations (p. 500)
Offer Choices
Create Service Offerings
Eddie Bauer, a catalog retailer offers three different delivery options: 5 to 7 days via standard delivery; 3 to 4 days via express delivery; or 2 days via express plus delivery. The delivery rates are higher for faster service

16. Manage Customer Expectations
3. Communicate the Criteria and Levels of Service Effectiveness
Ex: ______________________________
4. Negotiate Unrealistic Expectations
______________________________________

17. Improve Customer Education
Prepare Customers for the Service Process
Step-by-step instruction; customer is unfamiliar with process
Confirm Performance to Standards and Expectations:
Help customer better evaluate effectiveness of service – advertise that guarantee is available; explain in “customer-friendly” terms

18. Improve Customer Education
3. Clarify Expectations after the Sale
Service providers sometimes need to tell customers that services have been performed for them. To get credit for their actions, service providers need to reinforce their actions with appropriate communication about their accomplishment of the service ___________________
Teach Customers to Avoid ________________ Periods and Seek ________________ Periods
Bank gives new customers a brochure entitled “How to Lose Wait” that gives advice on how to avoid delays at the bank, and lists banks’ busiest and slowest times.

19. Manage Internal Marketing Communication
Create Effective ___________ Communications
Company newsletters and magazines, s, recognition programs; keep employees informed of everything that is being conveyed to customers through external marketing
2. Create Effective ___________ Communications
Coordination between departments; open channels of communication between marketing, sales, and operations.

20. Manage Internal Marketing Communication
3. Align Back-Office and Support Personnel with External Customers through Interaction of Measurement